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Information

Mastermind
(I)

Real
Name: Jason Wyngarde Occupation: Professional criminal, former carnival mentalist,
former subversiveIdentity: SecretLegal Status: Citizenship unknown; no criminal record
as yet Other Aliases: None known Place of Birth: Unrevealed Marital Status: Single Known Relatives: NoneGroup Affiliation: Former member of the original Brotherhood
of Evil Mutants and of Factor Three, rejected applicant to the
Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club Base of Operations: Mobile First Appearance: X-MEN #4

History: Nothing is known about Mastermind's life before
the time when, while working as a carnival mentalist,
ha was enlisted by Magneto
as a member of his Brotherhood
of Evil Mutants. At this time Magneto sought to protect
his fellow superhuman mutants from persecution by normal
human beings by conquering humanity and ruling the world
himself. The other members of the Brotherhood were his
allies in pursuit of his goals. As a member of the Brotherhood,
Mastermind battled the original X-Men
repeatedly, but the X-Men continually thwarted Magneto
and the Brotherhood. Finally, Magneto attempted to enlist
the enigmatic alien being known as the Stranger as an
ally. Angered, the Stranger transformed Mastermind into
stone and transported Magneto, he captured, to another
planet.

Eventually, Mastermind returned to normal and joined Factor
Three, another organization of superhuman mutants
bent on world conquest. However, Mastermind and his allies
joined the X-Men in defeating Factor Three's leader after
discovering he was an extraterrestrial being.

After again being defeated as a member of Magneto's Brotherhood,
Mastermind was invited to apply for admission to the Inner
Circle of the Hellfire
Club. To prove his worth, Mastermind sought to use
his mutant powers and artificial means to alter the personality
of the X-Men Jean Grey
psionically so that she would-willingly become the Inner
Circle's new Black Queen. Unknown to Mastermind or anyone
else, his victim was not really Grey, but was a cosmic
entity, the phoenix-force, which had duplicated Grey's
form and personality. Mastermind succeeded in causing
the false Grey into becoming the new Black Queen, but
thus unintentionally triggered the process that would
soon transform her into the insane Dark Phoenix. Before
the latter transformation was complete, the false Grey
broke free of Mastermind's control and opened his mind
to all the psionic sense impressions she received from
the cosmos. Unable to cope with them, Mastermind fell
into a catatonic state. The Inner Circle, of course, rejected
his application for membership.

Mastermind eventually returned to normal, but remembered the
glory of the cosmos he had perceived, and felt tormented
that he could no longer experience it. He decided to take
revenge on Grey's friends, the X-Men. He succeeded somehow,
in inducing Mariko Yashida into calling off her wedding
of the X-Men Wolverine,
and caused the X-Men Cyclops
and his teammates into thinking Madelyne
Pryor, whom Cyclops loved, was Dark Phoenix. Mastermind
hoped to crush the X-Men's spirits by thus manipulating
them into killing Pryor. But the X-Men discovered Mastermind's
deception and defeated him.

Mastermind also tried to contact the Phoenix Force once again,
contacting its then-current host, Rachel
Summers, but he was defeated by Phoenix's team, Excalibur.

Later, Wyngarde discovered he had somehow contracted the deadly
Legacy Virus, a disease which affected only mutants. About
the same time, Mastermind was targeted by the mutant-hunting
X-Cutioner, but he was
helped by the X-Men. Wyngarde made peace with the X-Men
and apologized to Jean Grey for his past misdeeds. Soon
after, however, Wyngarde died from complications of the
Legacy Virus.

Note: Mastermind often uses his powers to give himself
an illusory handsome appearance. Both his real and illusory
physical characteristics are listed here.

Strength Level: Mastermind possesses the normal human
strength of a man of his age, height, and build who engages
in no regular exercise.

Known Superhuman Powers: Mastermind is a mutant with
the power of illusion casting. He can psionically cause
other people to see, hear, touch, smell, and/or taste
things which to not actually exist. For example, he can
seem to make a solid wall appear in an empty space. He
can also cause people to see, hear, touch, smell, and/or
taste real things in ways that they would not do naturally.
For example, he can make himself look and sound like a
different person, or look and feel like a wall, or even
seem invisible. Without artificial aids, Mastermind cannot
cause only one person among many who are present to see
his illusions: everyone within the range of his power,
which can extend over an entire city (as when he helped
Magneto capture the Latin American nation of Santo Marco),
will see his illusions. Since his power only affects the
mind, his illusions cannot be recorded on film or tape
or by other means. However, his power works so strongly
on the mind that even if his victim or victims know they
are being subjected to an illusion, they will still react
to the illusion as if it were reality unless they can
rid themselves of all suspicions that it is indeed reality.
Hence, if Mastermind creates the illusion of a wall, most
people, even if they know it is an illusion, will still
be unable to walk through it. Invariably Mastermind's
illusions are so realistic that most people are unable
to help having the feeling, at least subconsciously, that
they are not illusions but reality.

Special Limitations: Without artificial aids, Mastermind
could not single out one person present in a group to
see his illusions.

Paraphernalia: In his psionic enthrallment of the phoenix-entity
he believed to be Jean Grey, Mastermind used a miniature
"mindtap mechanism" designed by Emma
Frost, the Hellfire Club's White Queen, which enabled
him to project illusions directly into the entity's mind,
so that only the entity "saw" them, and to monitor
the entity's thoughts, both over great distances.